The existence of the D-notice (aka DA-notice) committee is under threat, reports the Sunday Times. It cites sources who say some officials in the Ministry of Defence, which is considering a review of the system, want to fold the committee into the new press regulator or place it within the MoD's own press office.

Presumably, it does not mean the regulator currently being set up by newspaper publishers in defiance of the rules laid down by the royal charter.

The article says that calls for reform have grown since The Guardian published leaks by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden without consulting the committee.

(NB: Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told MPs in December that the paper consulted DA-notice committee secretary Andrew Vallance about all but one of its Snowden stories. The exception concerned the revelation of spying by GCHQ on delegates at a G20 conference in 2009).

DA-notices are issued by the defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee (DPBAC) as warnings to media editors about military and intelligence information that it deems damaging to security. Though they are not binding they have generally been obeyed.

Some journalists believe the system, created before the first world war, is outdated in the digital age because of the availability of material on the internet.

But Simon Bucks, DPBAC's vice-chair - and associate editor at Sky News - is quoted by the Sunday Times as saying: "Any suggestion that the current system be abolished would potentially be a precursor of a coercive system which I believe the entire British media would oppose."